Any interest in a budget ($100-200) subwoofer “shootout”?

[hardisj]

A few arrived today. The weather is nice enough outside that I considered starting the tests today but:
a) my back is killing me
b) I have been testing speakers nonstop all week and I need a break
c) I would rather test all at the exact same time so I don't have to set up and take down more than once

Anyway... stay tuned!

 

[raistlin65]

A few arrived today. The weather is nice enough outside that I considered starting the tests today but:
a) my back is killing me
b) I have been testing speakers nonstop all week and I need a break
c) I would rather test all at the exact same time so I don't have to set up and take down more than once

Anyway... stay tuned!

View attachment 81696

Save your back. Get a hand truck

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Milwauk...in-1-Convertible-Hand-Truck-CHT800P/100071520

Way easier to work with than a furniture dolly for moving boxes.

 

[hardisj]

@amirm or anyone else who may know...

What is the typical subwoofer pre-out voltage of an AVR? 2vRMS is my guess. I know some can be 1.5v, some can be higher. But I'm just looking for a general pre-out voltage from the LFE channel of an AVR. I figure Amir would know based on his extensive testing with various electronics.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Astrozombie]

Don't bother with the Polk, I already had it in the past and sold it for like $50. I'm curious about the Dayton 15's, would be cool to have a friend or someone who was interested in some cheap subs to order 2-4 and demo them. I would even say to skip all 10'' subs since i've tried so many.
<- Current owner of 2 of the previous Wirecutter recommendation Monoprice 12's.

 

[VeloCast]

You don’t have to worry in Voltage, Watts, unless you are building your own electronic thing.
A bunch of amplifiers in the market will have single RCA jacks: Mono Out, Mix Out, Subwoofer Out, Super Woofer Out, etc., to connect the subwoofer RCA LINE IN that obviously are Bass Management Crossovers rather than LFE. Maybe, if you have a subwoofer that can go down to 3 Hz then you can worry about it! A LFE channel can handle low frequencies 3-120 Hz.

 

[hardisj]

I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important for me to know for my test purposes.

I will stick with 2v.

 

[Chrispy]

I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was important for me to know for my test purposes.

I will stick with 2v.

Curious, how does this tie in with the sub amp sensitivity, tho?

 

[hardisj]

Curious, how does this tie in with the sub amp sensitivity, tho?

I need to set a max voltage out (from Klippel to sub amp) in my template. Nothing complicated. I am just targeting the typical pre-out voltage. I figure most sub amps will be adequately triggered from what a typical AVR provides (with the sub amp gain wide open). Thus, my question on what most AVR’s max pre-out voltage is.

I know people always want to over analyze. But this is a simple question. No need to complicate it.

 

[hardisj]

Started the "10-inch subwoofer showdown" measurements today: free field reference measurements. Outdoor ground plane, reflection free until about 79ms. Crossovers set as wide open as I could.

Still waiting on the Elac to arrive. Results are preliminary. Levels weren't matched. Just needed to get an outdoor measurement so I can use them for room correction. So don't take anything to the bank yet. Just teasing some photos.

 

[MZKM]

Started the "10-inch subwoofer showdown" measurements today: free field reference measurements. Outdoor ground plane, reflection free until about 79ms.

Still waiting on the Elac to arrive. Results are preliminary. Levels weren't matched. Just needed to get an outdoor measurement so I can use them for room correction. So don't take anything to the bank yet. Just teasing some photos.

View attachment 82062View attachment 82063View attachment 82064View attachment 82065View attachment 82066View attachment 82067View attachment 82068

I own a Klipsch sub, it’s output at 30Hz is way boosted compared to the rest of the frequency response, this cheaper one looks to be doing the same but at a higher frequency.
And damn, except the Klipsch, those distortion metrics are crazy.

Are you able to do max SPL using the CEA-2010 parameters?

 

[Beershaun]

Cool. What is the target frequency response curve and max distortion target?

 

[hardisj]

I will be using the CEA-2010B standard per Klippel’s TBM module.

https://www.klippel.de/products/rd-system/modules/tbm-tone-burst-measurement.html

 

[KaiserSoze]

A few arrived today. The weather is nice enough outside that I considered starting the tests today but:
a) my back is killing me
b) I have been testing speakers nonstop all week and I need a break
c) I would rather test all at the exact same time so I don't have to set up and take down more than once

Anyway... stay tuned!

View attachment 81696

When your neighbors saw that they probably cringed!

 

[KaiserSoze]

I hate to say it, but the final word is already evident. They are all very peaky, with "one-note" response curves, which is due to the enclosures not being as large as they should be. It narrows the bandwidth and increases the sensitivity within the narrowed bandwidth, allowing for greater peak output for a given amount of supplied power. It's the standard formula, but it's more apparent with cheap subs. Very high Q, very resonant. If you succeed in getting any of them to sound good, it will only be because of room correction. You'll end up proving that with room correction and EQ any cheap can be made to sound decent so long as you don't might the distortion. Once they are all equalized the one with lowest distortion will likely prevail, and looking at the graphs you provided above, it will be the Klipsch. Uh, I supposed I should stop being such a Debbie Downer. It may well turn out that they are all pretty decent once the room correction has been applied. Hey, you know, one thing that would be interesting would be to do the room correction thing with the sub outside, for one of them anyway, to see how effective the room correction is at flattening the inherent response of the sub, as opposed to correcting for the room.

 

[MZKM]

I hate to say it, but the final word is already evident. They are all very peaky, with "one-note" response curves, which is due to the enclosures not being as large as they should be. It narrows the bandwidth and increases the sensitivity within the narrowed bandwidth, allowing for greater peak output for a given amount of supplied power. It's the standard formula, but it's more apparent with cheap subs. Very high Q, very resonant. If you succeed in getting any of them to sound good, it will only be because of room correction. You'll end up proving that with room correction and EQ any cheap can be made to sound decent so long as you don't might the distortion. Once they are all equalized the one with lowest distortion will likely prevail, and looking at the graphs you provided above, it will be the Klipsch. Uh, I supposed I should stop being such a Debbie Downer. It may well turn out that they are all pretty decent once the room correction has been applied. Hey, you know, one thing that would be interesting would be to do the room correction thing with the sub outside, for one of them anyway, to see how effective the room correction is at flattening the inherent response of the sub, as opposed to correcting for the room.

The group delay will also play a large role in whether a sub is “musical” or not, or else even if you time/phase align at the crossover region, the deep bass will lag behind.

 

[hardisj]

To clarify, when I say room correction, I mean so I can perform the max SPL tests indoors. Using Klippel’s ISC module, one just needs a proper “reference” (outdoor, NFS, anechoic) and then other measurements can be taken indoors. This is useful for various reasons. In this case it keeps me out of the summer heat and isn’t as annoying to my neighbors.

https://www.klippel.de/products/rd-system/modules/isc-in-situ-compensation.html

 

[preload]

He already said in the Rythmik review that he can't do CEA-2010 because it'll annoy the neighbors and probably wife.

Awww that's what I want to see in sub reviews. FR isn't terribly helpful.

 

[Haint]

Is distortion in low bass actually audible and problematic? Seems like I've always read that it doesn't matter, but not sure how much truth there is to that.

 

[KaiserSoze]

The group delay will also play a large role in whether a sub is “musical” or not, or else even if you time/phase align at the crossover region, the deep bass will lag behind.

The difference in group delay near the port resonance, for a ported vs. sealed subwoofer, is something else that Likwitz wrote briefly about. Unfortunately there is a problem with proving whether it doesn't make and audible difference, because there will obviously be a difference in perceived bass output. Listeners will report hearing a difference (which does not need to be proved), but there is no easy way for the test to differentiate between audibility of the different level of low bass output vs. audibility of the difference in group delay. Perhaps it is possible using DSP to produce the group delay effect without the change in the frequency response, and to (separately) produce the change in the frequency response without the group delay. If DSP can be used to do this, it should be possible to perform tests to determine whether the group delay difference is something that we can hear. I think it might be audible, because the associated gradient in the time offset seems great enough, however I also wonder whether the frequency response difference is dominant to the point that determined effort might needed to hear the difference in group delay. I would like to know the answer. My personal preference is for sealed enclosures. Six days out of seven I am inclined to think that the audible difference is simply the difference in the steepness of the rolloff, but there is also one day in seven when I am willing to bet that a significant contribution to the audible difference is the difference in the amount of time offset for the very deep bas vs. all the rest of it.

 

[KaiserSoze]

Is distortion in low bass actually audible and problematic? Seems like I've always read that it doesn't matter, but not sure how much truth there is to that.

Supposedly distortion in bass is less audible than distortion occurring higher up in the spectrum, however this fact is barely significant in light of the fact that distortion in deep bass is typically greater by orders of magnitude than distortion higher up in the spectrum. Hardly a day goes by that I don't hear at least one really awful car subwoofer out on the road somewhere, and the ones that sound really awful do so mainly because of the excessive distortion. An excessively peaky frequency response can also be a bad sound for a subwoofer, but if the driver excursion exceeds the linear range as far as it obviously does with many automotive subwoofers, the distortion is so horrifically bad that it would be silly to even think about the flatness of the frequency response.